7 July 2003

With midwinter behind us, and most of the past week seeing either heavy snowfalls or blizzards, it has been a pretty quiet week at Casey.

For a few weeks now, the deep soft snow cover and deep blizztails everywhere have rendered conditions difficult or impassable for quad bikes off station. Last weekend, three of us tried to get onto the sea ice in O'Briens Bay in order to ride on the sea ice down towards Robbos for a few days. Once past the tide cracks, we became hopelessly bogged. After extricating ourselves, we returned home for a quiet weekend on station instead. The further heavy snowfalls most of this week will have rendered things much worse. However high winds for the past 48 hours may have blown much of the recent softer snow cover away and left a hard windblown surface crust, so we just might be mobile on quads again soon. We have all been somewhat surprised by the amount of snowfall we are seeing.

Friday night saw round 3 of our 'hangar rat' balsa plane indoor flying competition, with a barbecue in the green store. These lightweight models are simply amazing and very entertaining. Simon L's rat achieved the longest flight of 30.6 seconds, beating the 'rat maestro' Tubby G by a second and soaring to the top of the ongoing comp ladder with one more round to go.

Airborne hangar rat in the green store. July 2003. Photo I. Harris

Following the earlier disastrous and ignominious performance of my highly modified entry 'The Gladwrap Goose', I was graciously permitted to rebuild according to designer's specs, and achieved a respectable performance.

On Saturday night, chef Trent B and his skilled assistants for the day had prepared a sumptuous feast of Japanese dishes, which appeared in the wallow with all of Trent's flair for spectacular presentation.

Simon at our Japanese food night. July 2003. Photo I. Harris

Some expeditioners got into fancy dress for the occasion. Rossco's samurai warrior costume got a few people a little excited.

Currently Casey station is agog with speculation, rumour and innuendo as to the identity of the mysterious and cunningly devious personality 'Tess Tickle', who is known to us through (his/her??) emails from a hotmail address, and is apparently responsible for various acts of devilry, loss of property etc on station. Most notable of which was the loss by theft from the drying room of Danny's sexy one-piece bathing costume after the mid-winter swim. This act of 'snowdropping' has left Danny devastated and quite distraught. Speculation as to Tess's identity has ranged far and wide, even including the station leader, which I absolutely deny.